In the Industry 4.0 environment, being sustainably competitive is essential in global markets. In an endeavor to optimize the added value in the design process of complex products such as robots, managing the development process of such products is studied. The present study identifies the level of product performance that yields maximum return on product development in Industry 4.0. The study also identifies and reviews the key approaches to understanding and managing the design process of such complex products. It has been found that the hybrid approach is the most efficient approach. The study proposes an approach to effectively manage risk in the product design process that hybridizes attributes of both the lean and agile design paradigms. The proposed approach has been validated using five case studies with 99% level of statistical confidence. The results of this study enable efficient development of complex products such as robotic systems towards realizing sustainable competitiveness.